very dynamic sound range...
sounds more like a piece of music for a movie than a game.
sounds genuine and not synthesized.
my question, may I download and keep it in my playlist? (yes I actually like it that much)

typical of the growing list of orchestral demos around the traps with the exception that yours is more 'classical', more like an opera but still cinematic. I hate you orchestral guys ...ok, so I'm just jealous ;-)

Sound is pretty damn great, those GOS strings are kickass. What are the horn and woodwind libraries? Percussion from London Percussion?

Thanks for the comments. I was given the very vague direction to create "an action adventure piece that is very cinematic but not too hollywood" from the game developer. My sense was that this particular developer didnt want something that sounded like a game. I also would like to see game music break free of its general classification as "game music" and I think its slowly getting there.

Himiona, the Brass and winds come from various libraries. Some are from Dan Dean, some are from Miroslav and a few are from Roland. Your ears a very perceptive about the percussion ;-) I should have my copy of VSL Cube in a few days and I am looking forward to playing around with that.

Wow, that's amazing. If I didn't know better I'd say it was recorded live and not synthesized.

If there's any critique that could be levied against it, then it would be that it *does* sound like it belongs in a movie instead of a game. Outside of a cinematic I don't know how that would fit into your standard adventure game. But then, it sounds like that's what the developer wanted, so I can hardly fault you for that.

This does capture the spirit of adventure although does have a lot of breaks that might not be suitable for the game, all depends on the game maker's vision. Its very dynamic with strong highs to lows, giving it a very traditional classical. It feels like its suitable for a WW2 game. If this is gonna be used as loop it might be nice to tie in the the strings, oboe and horn for a seemless quality with a
Heterophony or something. Ending it with the adagio works but it really needs to tie in for the game purposes unless you'll have multi tracks that play one after another. Other than that, its a well done piece and is enough inspiration for me to break out my AKIA CDs and boot to OS 9 and make some more instrument patches. Anyone know of any software that can export AKIA to soundfont or another popular format? Probably not. Oh well, I can do it by hand.

The Miroslav I hear is pretty good. I just need to utilize the sample CDs I have

First of all, very nice. I think you did a good job with the sample selection. Although personally the reverb is a little wet for my tastes. It sounds realistic, but there is no compairison to a live orchestra, sorry. The synthesized sound is still great, however.

There are a lot of musical ideas. Some of them I really enjoyed, and I'm curious to why you didn't develop them out furthur. I can understand that you were going for the cinematic sound, in that case I'd say you probably want to forget about most any dissonance in your music, but that would explain the ADD nature of the music. I'd like to hear a second draft of this piece. There are some really interesting horn solos and melodies that just kind of come and go without very much memorance, and I think you could build around the phrases and try to tie the piece together with a unifying idea. I think the piece is strongest in the beginning, but then it loses continuity as its focus seems to change continually. A bright spot is a little before the halfway point, where the strings play that F D-flat melody, then you put it in again a half step higher a few times. I like the journey, but the peak of that expression I'd rewrite if I were you, it doesn't do the leadup justice in my opinion.

Hopefully I gave some criticism you could use, I mean a lot of this is very subjective so hopefully I can say something worthwhile. I'll post something of mine sooner or later so you can have at that.

Greg and Bachus the music is for a combat/action adventure game. Its really just title music as its just a demo to try to convince the developer to give me a live orchestra. As such, its not a loop and it really doesnt have to match any kind of game play.

Aarku, I didnt develop the ideas more because its an overture. In the overture form, you are simply restating key phrases that the listener has already heard elsewhere in the larger work. Actually, there arent that many ideas at all. If you listen carefully you will see that the overture is in a modified Rondo form. The same theme reappears 5 or 6 times just orchestrated very differently and drawing on some different tonalities. Listen carefully and you will hear the unifying phrases. Also, if you are really interested you can see them very clearly in the short score I provided with the original link.

Quote: Greg and Bachus the music is for a combat/action adventure game. Its really just title music as its just a demo to try to convince the developer to give me a live orchestra. As such, its not a loop and it really doesnt have to match any kind of game play.

Ah, that makes total sense. Still a very nifty piece of music. Anybody who wouldn't give you recording time with an orchestra after that is crazy.

Hah! I scrounged through my back issues of GameDeveloper to find an article on convincing a producer to hire a live orchestra, and it turns out you wrote it. Guess I don't need to tell you about it then.